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Chicago

Meletiou, Aristeidis. "The Evaluation of Library Services Methods: Cost Per Use and Users’ Satisfaction." In Integrated and Strategic Advancements in Decision Making Support Systems, ed. Pascale Zaraté, 93-107 (2012), accessed May 24, 2018. doi:10.4018/978-1-4666-1746-9.ch007

Abstract

In these competitive years of continuing change, libraries enrich their services with modern technologies and innovative approaches to satisfy users’ standards. This engagement significantly increases the effects of these new inputs on library budgets as new technology applications demand money and new organization schemes. Consequently, the annual budget has to be increased and difficulties arise due to its efficient allocation. This paper describes a methodology of evaluating offered services by using specific important factors like Users Satisfaction of a Service, Usage, and Cost of this service. Known methods for estimating Costs (ABC method) and estimating Satisfaction (MUSA method) in library fields are used. Also, the multi-criteria method to evaluate a service by correlating the above mentioned factors are used to give the observer the ability to find useful information. Finally, a case study about the evaluation of services using the proposed methodology is presented. The goal of the proposed methodology is to help library decision makers choose the most appropriate services to offer change and improvements according to user needs and allocated budgets.

1. Introduction

In this paper is mentioned a methodology that evaluates offered services by correlating three important factors that characterize them: Users’ Satisfaction of a Service, Usage and Cost of this service. These factors are very important as they would be able to express clearly the efficiency and the purpose of a service in a Library organization.

Efficiency of a service could be described as correlation of three above parameters as:

Efficiency of a service = f (cost, usage, satisfaction)

The purpose is to find how we can use and correlate them and find a method to express efficiency of the examined service. Before starting studying these factors, it is necessary to define what services are offered to Library’s users. Below there is a typical list of categorized services offered in a modern Library (Papadimitriou, A. Gkotzamani, K. Tsiotras, G. and Ntinas, I.):

Technology

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Audio/ Visual equipment and facilities. Using of a smart interface through Internet to get access to digitized multimedia educational material that Library has in its collection.

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Computers and terminals in Library’s building for accessing on-line resources like OPAC, Database, e-journals